


Matters of Failure

by AdorableDoom



Series: Storms [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Manipulation, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-22 01:07:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6065122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdorableDoom/pseuds/AdorableDoom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Supreme Leader's order are clear: destroy the Jedi. Kill the child of Skywalker. It's the only order Ren ever fails to obey. </p><p>Sequel to Storms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Matters of Failure

**Author's Note:**

> Major spoilers for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Sequel to Storms but can be read independently.

    "Anything else?"  
     Ren knows before the simpering Lieutenant Mitaka forces the words out. He feels it in his bones, has felt it since the moment his ship had touched down on that forsaken desert wasteland. So his failure, no, not his failure, a dying Ben Organa's final act of weakness, had at last returned to haunt him.

  
     His parents spend his last night at home screaming at each other. "Because of you," the voice in his head hisses. Because of him. His fault. It's always his fault. Ben cowers under his bed, hands pressed so tight over his ears that his head was starting to throb.  
     Yet the voices, all of them, still resonated clear as a bell.  
     His uncles are waiting for him when their ship touches down at the edge of waves. He'd only seen them a handful of times before now. The heroes of the New Republic. The Last Jedi. The New Republic's greatest pilot.  
     They'd come a few months earlier before the baby was born. Uncle Wedge had taken him up in one of the old A-Wings which had made Ben shriek with laughter while Uncle Luke and his mother sat whispering solemnly. And then his mother decided it was time to begin his training. "To send you away," the voice reminded, as it often did, "to get rid of you." It was right of course.  
     It always was.  
     She was there, the baby. A tiny pink thing no bigger than a doll squirming in the crook of Uncle Wedge's arm. Ben frowned up at her. What fun would she be? None at all, he was certain, she was too small to be anything but boring.  
     Uncle Luke, Master Luke now he supposed, leaned down and hugged Ben close. "We're so glad you're here Ben," he said with a smile. Ben clings to him almost desperately though he can't say why. For once, he noticed, the voice had nothing to say. Ben clutches at his uncle with shaking hands.

      As soon as Rey learns to walk she starts running, usually after him. "She's always following me!" he complained, without any real heat to Uncle Wedge one afternoon when he's hiding out from his new shadow in the hanger and helping his uncle repair one of the battered speeders his uncle seemed to collect the way other people collected holos of famous people. Uncle Wedge had laughed from beneath the speeder. "She loves you Ben," he said simply. Uncle Wedge slid from beneath the speeder, face black with oil and grim though he was grinning.  
    "You're her best friend," he said. Ben frowned at that, thinking that perhaps Rey was simply too young to know any better. He knew better than to say that of course. The truth of the matter is, he'd never had many friends, not at the temple or even at home. "You don't need them," the voice always reminded him. And of course he didn't need them, he knew that, yet. . . yet sometimes, in those rare moments when the voice was silent, Ben had sometimes wished. . .

    "C'mon on Ben!"  
     Ben sighed and rolled his eyes yet followed Rey down the temple steps none the less. As soon as her feet touched the sand below, Rey was off and running. "You can't catch me!" Rey called over her shoulder. Ben grinned and took off after her, slipping and sinking in the sand all the way down the beach. "Gotcha!" he yelled triumphantly as he scooped her easily up off the ground and into the air.  
     Rey shirked with happiness as he spun her around and around as the waves crashed upon the sand. Ben laughed along with her, smiling so wide it made his face hurt. "Higher!" she yelled over the sea. Ben lifted her as high as could, smiling wider as she laughed happily before settling her on his shoulders. "You're a giant Ben!" Rey laughed but not cruelly the way the others often did as he already towered over nearly all the other students.  
     "And you're an Ewok," he said which of course made her howl with laughter.

      They're afraid of him, he can see it in their eyes. He has known this all this life. He is too quiet, too strange. Wrong. "There's something wrong with him," he hears them say more than once out loud and in the imagined privacy of their thoughts.  
     "They are weak," his true Master whispers. And he is right. He is always so right. They are weak, pathetic. Jealous of his power.  
       Rey smiles whenever she sees him, waves him over with both hands. Unafraid. "Sit by me Ben!" she calls as soon as he enters the classroom. As if he didn't sit beside her every day. She was the temple's youngest student but Ben was it's best. As soon as Ben sat down, Rey clambered onto his lap and settled there for the entire lesson.  
  
    The Supreme Leader's orders are clear.  
    The new Jedi must be destroyed.  
    Ben knelt before his Master, his true Master, head bowed in obedience. "I will not fail you," he vowed. And he would not. This was his final test and once it was complete, he would at long last be a Jedi, a true Jedi, a Jedi worthy of his grandfather's mighty legacy. "I know you will not," The Supreme Leader said proudly, "you are my best student."  
    Ben had knelt before The Supreme Leader but it was Kylo Ren who stood.

  
    She was here.  
    Ren knows this the same way he had known it on Jakku. He alone had to find her. Undo the weaklings mistake once and for all. Without another word nor explanation, Ren turned his back on the chaos that descended upon the once peaceful castle and walked into the woods. It's easy enough to find her, strong though she is, she does not have his training.  
    She is no Jedi.  
    She is just a scavenger.  
    Nothing.  
    No one.  
    He would not have known her from a stranger if he had not been looking for her. She looks at him as if he is something out of a nightmare.  
Perhaps to her he is

  
     Ren saw the knight withdrew their saber, watched as the sparkling blade was risen and began its graceful and terrible executioners arc. Time seemed to slow. This was necessary, he told himself even as he freed his own saber from his belt, the child had to die. Skywalker's daughter could not be allowed to live. The Supreme Leader had commanded it so.  
     Ren could not fail his Master. This was his only thought even as he drove his saber forward and through his comrade's chest. Firelight from the burning temple illuminated Rey, soaking and shivering as she sat, helpless, in the mud and blood, staring up at him, no, not him, at Kylo Ren, in horror. Before Ren could react or even consider what he had done, Rey screamed. Screamed in the same manner their, her, fellow students had as Ren and his Knights struck down the seeds of what could grow into a threat, screamed in such away he had never heard before.  
     Scrambling to her feet, Rey turned and ran. It only takes a moment to loose her in the chaos. "The child must die," the Supreme Leader had commanded, "she cannot be allowed to become a Jedi." Even now, so far away, Ren could feel his Master's eyes upon him. He must not fail. He cannot fail.  
     Ren follows after her, half blinded by the maelstrom churning around them. Had she fled into the woods? No, there was only one place she would go. Home. The boy who was once named Ben took off his mask and tossed it aside with a carelessness he dare not think about as he rushed inside the small stone home.  
     "Rey!" he called into the darkness. "Rey! It's me!" It's the first time he's ever lied to her. It will not be the last nor will it be the worst of the lies he tells her this night. She does not hesitate. He knew she wouldn't. Rey comes tearing out of the darkness from her hiding place beneath the bed and into his arms. It would be so easy. He could do it now, quick and painless. No fear, no suffering.  
      A light flex of his power, a snap of fragile bones and it would be all over. Rey clung to him, weeping pitifully into his shoulder. The thought makes him sick. "It's okay," he lies, "I've got you. It's going to be okay." She believes him, he can feel it.  
      It was Ben, Ben who she trusted, Ben who she loved. Ben would never hurt her. "Stay quiet," he says in a low voice, "I'm going to get you out of here." Rey looks up at him, wet eyes wide and terrified but filled with such utter trust that it nearly sent him reeling. "Don't make a sound, understood?" Rey nods, terrified but obedient.  
     Ben covered her with his cloak, tucking her safely against his side. He does not put his mask back on until he's certain she cannot see. "Raze it to the ground," Ren commands to his knights as he steps over the threshold of the place he had once called home. "Skywalker will appreciate the irony." He feels the heat erupt behind him, hears the crackle of fire but does not look back.  
Kylo Ren makes his way through the destruction and death towards his ship, ever conscious of the slight weight tucked against him. He feels tears soak his shoulder but pretends he does not. Just as he pretends not to feel them on his own face.

  
    "If you ever need to hide something small," Han Solo said once, carefully balancing his son on his shoulders as he lifted a rusted control panel on a food storage unit. Inside between the circuits and wires there was small gap just big enough to hide a small bundle. "Put it in the kitchen. They never check the kitchen."  
     Once he is certain they are alone aboard the ship, Kylo Ren removed his mask and a shining panel from his private food strong unit. Inside, between the wires and circuits, there was a gap just wide enough to hide a small bundle. They never check the kitchen. "Stay here, don't make a sound. I'll come get you soon," he said, removing his cloak from Rey's head and lowering her carefully into the gap. It's a perfect fit.  
     She does not cry, does not protest. He knew she wouldn't. "I'm going to find your father but I'll come back soon," he promises though he cannot meet her gaze. Rey reaches out, seizing his much larger hand in both of hers, clutching him desperately. "The monster will get you," she whispered, voice wavering with barely suppressed sobs.  
     The lifeless eyes of his mask seemed to be burning a painful hole in his back. He knelt down so that the two of them were at eye level and forced his features into something he hoped passed for a smile though he cannot say why. "I'll be okay, I'm a Jedi remember?" The last Jedi soon. A true Jedi.  
     A Jedi worthy of his, their, grandfather's legacy. Rey nodded solemnly, drying her eyes and trying to bravely smoother her sobs and only then does she release his hand. "Don't worry, I'll protect you," Ben promises, fixing the panel back into place. They never check the kitchen.

  
    "You still want to kill me."  
     A statement of fact. Not a question. "That happens when you're being hunted by a creature in a mask!" she said between clenched teeth despite the danger. She was afraid, yes, so very afraid, but also angry, defiant even now. Ren cannot say why he does what he does next yet before he can stop himself, he's reaching up to remove his mask.  
    There is no recognition in gaze, no trace of familiarity. (Had he been hoping there would be? Ren smashes the thought before it could fully form) She did not know him.  
    Not anymore

   "Is it done?"  
    Kylo Ren looked up the scared visage of his Master and did something he had never done before, something he had not thought was possible. He lied.  
   "Yes, my Master."

    Jakku is a junk yard.  
    A barren wasteland dotted with primitive villages. A harsh and unforgiving backwater planet with no natural value to either the New Republic nor the First Order. It was a place where starships went to die, their metal bones picked over by scavengers for anything that could be sold. And as such, it did not get many visitors and those who did come had no reason to linger any longer than was absolutely necessary. Niima Outpost was a collection of salvaged junk and outcasts that was just big enough to play act at being a town.  
    A place where everyone kept their heads down and didn't ask questions. A place no one would ever think to come looking. Rey was sleeping when their ship touched down on the salt flats just on the outskirts of the outpost. Good. It would be easier that way.  
   Careful as he could, taking care not to wake her, he lifted her into his arms and carefully hitched her on his hip the way her fathers often did. The way Ben's own mother had once done. Small arms curl around his neck but otherwise she doesn't stir. On Jakku everything has a price. Unkar Plutt, The Blobfish--as the scavengers called him behind his back, takes Rey in exchange for a set of motion detection googles.  
   Ben keeps her in his arms until the last possible moment yet he does not say goodbye. She wakes when Ben tries to hand her over, fights tooth and nail even as she wept and pleaded, tiny hands clutching at his robes. "Don't go! Don't go!" Rey sobbed. "Quiet girl!" Plutt ordered, trying in vain to pull them apart. Rey won't let him go.  
    "I'll come back for you!" Ben lied, "I just need to make sure it's safe! Then I'll come back for you!" At last he finally managed to dislodge her hands from his robes. "I'll come back for you Rey, I promise!" Rey shook her head, struggling against the junkboss's surprisingly iron hold.        She never stopped reaching for him.  
     "Ben! Ben! Don't go! Come back! Come back!" He does not look back though her cries stay with him long after Jakku had become a speck in the distance.

 


End file.
